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In July 1944, the USS Rasher (SS-269) was due for an overhaul, and a skipper was needed to take her to Pearl Harbor. Rear Admiral Ralph Christie, headquartered in Perth, West Australia, had several qualified individuals who were either helping out on his staff or directing the refit of submarines.
Commander Henry G. Munson, Class of ’32, was one of those officers awaiting another boat assignment. After the USS Crevalle’s (SS-291) second war patrol he asked to be relieved of his command “to recoup and regroup.” But after only two weeks in the COs’ rest home at Cotesloe, Perth, Munson had gotten restless and volunteered to take over a repair group—ostensibly to “better organize the refits and hurry the boats back to sea to put more Japs on the bottom of the ocean.”
Around the sub base in Fremantle, it was rumored that Admiral Christie had gotten many gripes about Munson from the repair crews he managed; Munson had been pushing too hard, they complained. Thus, putting him on the Rasher was a good solution to the admiral’s problem. Besides, ten weeks on the beach with a war going on was as much as a warrior like Munson could bear.
On 17 July, Commander Munson relieved Lieutenant Commander Willard Laughton of the Rasher’s command. Munson brought with him Lieutenant (junior grade)
T. W. E. “Luke” Bowdler, U. S. Naval Reserve, who’d also been put ashore from the Crevalle for a rest. Munson, who admitted to night blindness, called Bowdler “my | eyes for night surface attack.” Bowdler, who ate lots of car- s rots, clarified much of the attack data and battle dam- I age originally assessed by Munson in his patrol reports. I
^asher left Fremantle on 22 July with orders “to “JK, Whitewash’ areas off Luzon from 14°15'N to u anc' east Longitude 115°E; in a coordinated Jarch and attack group with USS Bluefish [SS-222]; to oainate 30 August and return to Pearl.”
11 patrol, Munson was not a card player and spent little ()r lc ln the wardroom. He either worked at his cabin desk Prowled relentlessly around the submarine, looking for ° ,erns- ^ he spotted one, he’d ask one of the crew a g . question, impatiently wait out the answer, flash a °n to show understanding, and then be off. His main Creation was solving calculus problems—-using a pen. ne °f his officers, who had a master’s degree in mathe- *es, commented: “No sonofabitch ever works calculus w! f* a Pen!” But Munson did. He’d sit there in his cabin ^ h a burned-out cigarette dangling from his mouth. As Worked his calculations, he’d twist his lean face into a Nrnace, the bottom lining of his wild, blue eyes showing ood-red. Even the messengers approached him with feat caution.
j^anson always wore a complete khaki uniform with n° h*r 'ns’8n'as’ and black shoes. On the bridge, during Sht action, he wore a cap. He did, however, relax the eadng of black ties on board ship during patrol.
I he Rasher’s fifth patrol stayed fairly calm until early ugust, when things began to pick up: “5 August, 30 11 es south of Scarborough Shoals. 2255 . . . radar con- seven minutes. Submerged. 0211 with starboard escort at 700 yards, angle-on-bow zero [target headed directly at Rasher]-, got single-ping sonar range to target of 1,400 yards; fired 6 torpedoes with 60° right gyro angles, spread 2°. Timed five hits and heard break-up noises as we were forced to duck under the escorts. Four depth charges, distant, went off; surfaced with escorts milling around astern at 8,000 yards.” [The ship was a confirmed sinking.]
Although it sounded like a routine maneuver in the patrol report, note the position of the Rasher at the time of firing torpedoes—and the daring of this approach.
The real action started on 18 August. There were nine successive aircraft contacts to the north of the Rasher during the late afternoon. Munson suspected that this indicated an air patrol flying ahead of a group of valuable ships. His guess was a good one!
At 2009, with the Rasher surfaced, a radar contact was reported on a mass of ships approaching from the northeast-range was 19,000 yards. The radar showed about 13 large contacts in three columns, and at least six smaller ones in escort screening positions. There was no moon; it was very dark with almost continuous rain. Munson wrote in his ship’s log that “these were ideal conditions for a night surface attack.”
Munson kept the Rasher idling in front of the approaching Japanese ships. She lay directly ahead of the oncoming escorts on the starboard side of the convoy (see Figure 1).
As the mass of ships, making 13 knots, closed the Rasher, Munson swung clear of the nearest escort, letting her pass within 1,500 yards. Nothing was seen in the intense blackness. When the Rasher's radar operator reported being confused by the many side-lobes from the big ships, Munson swung the Rasher to port and opened the range to the near column of ships.
At 2122, two stern tube torpedoes were fired with a 2° spread and range of 2,800 yards at a big target. Lieutenant “Willy” Newlon, the torpedo data computer operator, then asked for a hold-fire because he didn’t think the gyr°j were matching properly. However, the two discharged torpedoes were observed to hit, “sending up a column ot flame 1,000 feet high while part of the ship blew off • ■ ' both parts burning fiercely.” She apparently was a tanker- The near escort fired her guns wildly in all directions, and began to fiercely depth-charge something well astern the Rasher.
At this point, a lookout, confused by the tracer bullet* arching out from the convoy toward the Rasher, shouted “aircraft closing astern.” Munson ordered full speed; very agitated, he shouted for the radar operator to check for a rapidly closing contact. Munson then dropped down into the conning tower to make his own check of the radar scope. He found no indication of a plane. But the delay which was created lost the Rasher a chance to shoot her other two stem fish.
Munson then hurried his boat up the starboard flank of the convoy, remaining 4,000 yards from the near escorts- During this maneuver, he sent a contact report in plain language to the Bluefish—%3 miles to the southwest-" telling her skipper to join the action.
At 2206, Munson swung the Rasher around the stern of the convoy’s starboard leading escort and charged toward the big ships at 15 knots. He only slowed the Rasher mo-
’-p, at a ui j,7uo _ycuua.
Uibc^^a.S^er was then swung hard left to bring the stern of ships seemed excessive
•wo
escorts.
(Apparently, she sank soon afterwards.) nson then sent another contact report to the Bluefish, ^y'ng that only six torpedoes remained and that the s, • er was trying to head off the northernmost group of •ps. This group, he noted, comprised three large ships s °ne ‘‘very non-hostile escort, ’ ’ which seemed to have tadar because of interference on the Rasher’s radar n Pe- This escort kept darting annoyingly toward the s/ler> then turning back to protect her ships. c 2330, with the Japanese ships on a northwesterly tQ rse’ Munson fired the Rasher’s four remaining bow rPedoes at the leading target, “a cargo ship (an AK) of ^u°d size.” The range was 2,200 yards. The first torpedo the tubes hooked right, steadied on a course, passed . ern of the cargo ship, and hit another ship some dis- * heyond. The next three torpedoes hit their intended "et and she exploded with a deafening roar. The AK
ntarily to fire six torpedoes from the forward tubes, fish^ WCre a’met* at a huge ship 3,300 yards away. The je ,Were sPread 2° at 45 knots, and set for a six-foot Ped /^1C depth-keeping performance of the Mk-14 tor- a oe* ^ *3een so Poor tkat Munson didn’t want to risk l.hern dipping under a target.) cer f ^'r’n^ was done on ra^ar bearings. The battle offi- of th Luke Bowdler, unable to distinguish any
ty. e ships being fired at, could not get check-bearings, start V*16 *"lfSt tkree torPecl°es hit in the nearest ship, she her 6(* Smokin8 heavily and small fires broke out all over Cl . toPside. Luke saw enough of the torpedoed ship to fourtht*lat a was “a tremendous two-stack transport.” A t h torpedo—timed to hit a ship off the port bow of the nsport—exploded at a range of 3,900 yards.
eo]6S l° ^ear' The radar range to a big target in a third jjmn of ships seemed excessive—3,800 yards. But ass ^ ^ewl°n’ from his station inside the conning tower, ^ tired the skipper that it seemed by far to be the biggest -p^P 0n the radar, and should be worth shooting at. rough the misty rain, Luke had the impression that the UP was flat across the top, “like a very big tanker.” tar * “I four stem tubes were fired at the huge
a *et> and three hits were heard; a fourth hit was heard in Tiore distant ship. Two observed flashing hits on the near War Ver’P|e<^ that she was indeed huge. (Not until after the was it revealed by a Japanese prisoner of war that this 20 nri ^een the escort aircraft carrier Taiyo of about tons, which sank as a result of the three hits.) nson pulled the Rasher clear for a rapid reload of the t0rPedo tubes.
At this point, the convoy had split into two groups. One s UP continued on a southwesterly course, and the other „r Un§ toward the northwest; Munson went after the latter fis'hf ^he group to the south was attacked by the Blue- of u°Ur hours later, with two large tankers damaged. One 04nn C tankers was sur,k in a second Bluefish attack at Ijjj °n the 19th, and at 0713 the Bluefish scored three ^°n the second tanker, without sinking her.) to * Munson—observing the radar in the conning
anWer'7'n°ted that the “two-stack transport” damaged in earlier attack had dropped out of formation, along with
was probably loaded with munitions, causing a pressure wave which swept across the Rasher’s bridge.
Only two torpedoes remained and both were in stem tubes. Consequently, the Rasher was swung hard right and the last two torpedoes were launched at the closest ship: both of them hit. This ship promptly slowed to five knots and reversed course, heading for the coast of Luzon. The Rasher followed this crippled ship while an escort joined her belatedly—to defend against further attacks.
Three hours later, the escort illuminated the damaged ship, only to be shot at by the vessel, which probably mistook her own escort for an enemy submarine. The escort’s searchlight revealed the damaged ship as another two-stack transport of great size.
Meanwhile, Munson passed the word in the Rasher: “All hands can splice the main brace in the control room—a shot glass of liquor for every man, until all the medicinal brandy is gone. Well done, mates!”
Still later, the Japanese escort heard the Rasher take a “ping” with her sound gear while attempting to get the range on the transport without disclosing the radar. The escort charged back at the Rasher, out of torpedoes, the deadly submarine was finally forced to withdraw.
Just before the early morning trim dive, USS Spadefish (SS-411), far to the north, was raised on voice radio. Commander Gordon Underwood, a classmate of Munson’s, reported sinking one or possibly two troop transports which went by him at 0330—in the early morning—headed west from the point of the Rasher’s initial attack on the convoy.
The battle was finished. The Rasher had sunk at least three ships and damaged five more, with 16 hits out of 18 torpedoes fired—that gave the Rasher 21 hits for the 24 torpedoes fired on the entire patrol!
Munson could only guess at the tonnage of Japanese ships he’d sunk or damaged as he headed his boat for Midway, the patrol terminated by Commander, Task Force 71 in Perth. Luke Bowdler and the battle lookouts were quizzed at great length as to what they observed, and how big they guessed the ships were that they vaguely saw through the rain. Bowdler insisted that “all of the eight ships hit were 10,000 tons or bigger,” Munson didn’t think so; he felt that a far more modest total tonnage was reasonable, and he wasn't sure that more than two had gone down. But when the Rasher pulled into Midway, a staff officer of Vice Admiral Charles A. Lockwood, Commander Submarines Pacific, was waiting on the dock. He and Munson then went into a secret conference with the Rasher’s executive officer excluded; this was unusual.
Between Midway and Pearl Harbor, Munson changed his tonnage estimates upward. His new figures brought the Rasher’s toll to five ships, totaling 53,000 tons sunk, and four ships damaged for 22,000 more tons. This checked very closely with the official assessment made after the end of the war. Apparently, decoded Japanese messages had given Admiral Lockwood’s command in Pearl Harbor a good deal of information on the actual ships torpedoed.
Munson and the Rasher were responsible for the most total tonnage of sunk and damaged ships for any single U. S. war patrol during World War II.
I 1 at 16,000 yards, 225° true. Began end-around at
,I * * 4’000 yards; 6 August, at 0130 submerged for approach,
arget was the Kosei Maru, 8,223 tons, escorted by one jnall SC-type on port bow with two 1,000-ton AKs on aboard side, [even AKs as escorts were known to roll
°Ver depth charges], all making 8 knots, zigging every